Christie’s Up 9% in 2011; Contemporary Top Category Up 22%; Private Sales Up 44%

“Investors are entering the market and existing collectors are buying more,” Steven Murphy, Christie’s chief executive, said in an interview. “The ease with which information and images can be accessed through the Internet is also helping create a fundamental increase in demand.”

The London-based auction house sold 3.6 billion pounds ($5.7 billion) of art and collectibles last year.

Contemporary works were the most lucrative category, contributing 735.7 million pounds at public sales, an increase of 22 percent.

Impressionist and modern declined 28 percent to 548.6 million pounds

Asian art at 552.9 million pounds, which increased 13 percent in 2011.

New clients represented 12 percent of the value of Christie’s international sales, the auction house said.

New York remains the company’s biggest auction center, with 1.2 billion pounds of sales in 2011, 6 percent down on 2010. London, which hosts three series of contemporary-art auctions each year, was up 20 percent to 871.6 million pounds.Growth inHong Kong slowed to 11 percent with 519.1 million pounds of transactions.